A stray thought today led me to think about game series that rely on a recurring pattern of threat, and how the games and their sequels explain that threat. In other words, how do characters in a serial RPG world understand all the bad things that keep happening? How would the players understand it?

In the Genesis Phantasy Star games, the mythology builds up over time. Broad spoilers follow. In Phantasy Star 1, Alis and company fight to restore peace against the tyrannical King Lassic. His villainy doesn't quite add up, since he used to be a great king. It's only after defeating Lassic that the true puppetmaster is revealed - Dark Falz (Force). Phantasy Star 2 starts a thousand years later with an unknown environmental malady that turns out to be caused by Mother Brain. Again, she's a puppet to Dark Force. By Phantasy Star 4, anyone who has played the series knows that the subtitle "End of the Millennium" refers to some return of Dark Force. Zio's not the true enemy; Dark Force is. The characters endure the consequences of environmental degradation caused by the "Great Collapse," or the events of Phantasy Star 2. Characters recur: Noah appears in all three mentioned games, a kind of prophet or wise man who can explain the cause of current events. Allusions like this sustain a sense of continuity between the three games. Meanwhile, other patterns (like the existence of an "Alys" in PS4 resembling the "Alis" in PS1) appeal to players familiar with the series. The cumulative effect is to create a world that feels heavier and more substantial with each iteration.

Lunar has its own millennial pattern to it. One of the big appeals of Lunar 2 is playing through a world where I see the changes wrought after the action in Lunar 1 - fallen Vane, rusted Grindery, how Meribia has expanded, the shifting locations of the dragons. Another is the familiar patterns set in the first game, but now with added history and import: Hiro eventually seeking to become a Dragonmaster not because he always wanted to be one but because they need to challenge the power of the false Althena with the true powers of the world. Ghaleon again thwarts and frustrates players, but with some vital differences that become clear over the course of the story. Nall appears, weary after having lost dear friends again and again. Lunar 2's world is again deeper and heavier than its predecessor, with traditions and patterns that both stand on their own and build off of the previous game.

I find this really interesting to think about because it touches on one reason why I tend to like the world of game sequels more. Beyond any advances in graphics or battle systems, the sequels that build directly on the world of their predecessors feel multitonal. They frequently deal with inevitable consequences of actions like Luna deciding to rejoin humanity rather than remaining as Althena. They add more detail to my understanding of that world. It's why I like Chrono Cross at least as much as Chrono Trigger, for instance.

Thoughts? Games you also like because of how it handles the consequences of previous games?

"Just as you touch the energy of every life form you meet, so, too, will will their energy strengthen you. Fail to live up to your potential, and you will never win. " --- The Old Man at the End of Time

A nice, albeit somewhat obscure, example would be the Langrisser series in its original iteration. The series consists of five games (not counting remakes and the like) spanning 1000 years, with a clear beginning and end (that is, Langrisser V was very intentionally set up to end the series) made during the 16 and 32-bit generations. Only the first game got an official North American release (under the title Warsong), while Langrisser II (along with its remake Der Langrisser) and Langrisser IV got complete fan translations. Langrisser III and Langrisser V have fan translated scripts, but not to my knowledge translation patches (aside from a partial Langrisser III patch). To make matters more complicated, although Career Soft (the developer) intended for the series to end with Langrisser V, they did not own the IP, so a number of "Langrisser" games have been made since then, including Langrisser Re:Incarnation Tensei for the 3DS, which actually got a North American release for no good reason (38.12% on Gamerrankings). As the scare quotes might suggest, I consider all of the post-Career Soft releases to be Langrisser in name only.

Anyway, with all that out of the way, I'll try to talk about how the series builds a mythology without getting too spoileriffic. The timeline is as follows

Langrisser V takes place during the later stages and immediate aftermath of Langrisser IV (an idea Career Soft would later revisit with Growlanser II relating to the original Growlanser in a similar fashion). Certain elements recur throughout the series, mainly an ongoing war between Lushiris, the goddess of light, and Chaos, the god of darkness along with two swords "belonging" to each faction, Langrisser and Alhazard. Certain characters appear in every game, while much of the cast of Langrisser IV makes an appearance in Langrisser V.

There are a lot of neat touches in how the games remind you that they're all taking place on a world that's evolving and changing in between games and in building its mythology over time. One of the characters from the original Langrisser founds a kingdom that appears in Langrisser II and Langrisser V, while other kingdoms fall over time. For example, one of the battles in Langrisser II takes place in the ruins of a castle from the original Langrisser. The story of Langrisser IV is set in motion with the theft of a magical item created at the end of Langrisser II. Legends referred to in Langrisser and Langrisser II form the basis of Langrisser III's story, while Langrisser V ties everything together and explains just why crises seem to erupt every 200 years. Objects or events of seemingly minor importance in one game are revealed to have greater significance in later games, which can make it fun to revisit the old games with the knowledge of where it's all leading.

One issue Career Soft had to grapple with is how to tell a continuing story when the games have multiple endings. Both Der Langrisser and Langrisser IV have branching stories, and most games in the series have multiple character endings (the course of a character's life changes based on how much they accomplished in battle, a character who falls in battle too many times will usually be revealed to have died young, and from Langrisser III on the game incorporated a romance/relationship system). For plot branches they just chose a single branch as canon, effectively demoting the others to "what-ifs." Interestingly enough, the canon branch in Langrisser IV is actually pretty hard to unlock, as it requires the player to fulfill a large number of conditions. With the relationship system, the story in later games is set up not to address who, if anyone, the main characters from previous games ended up with.

All in all, it's a very good example of a series with a story spanning several games and a world that feels more fleshed out each time you revisit it.

To be honest the only game where I get this feeling is with Lunar. I've only played a bit of Phantasy Star (PS1 and half of PS2), and never Langrisser (though Alunissage if I recall is a major Langrisser fan -- would love to hear her thoughts to expand on this too).

...come to think of it, I'm not sure if there are very many game series I've even played that could fall into this category... I mean of the games I've played at least two of and that are part of a series (not counting nonsequential stuff like Legend of Zelda or Mario, or non-storyline stuff like Civilization):- Final Fantasy: the games are intentionally unconnected to each other- Mass Effect: the games occur directly after one another, so there's world-building but not in this sense- Shining Force: oh... this might fit the bill

Ok so Shining Force... The jump from SF1 and SF2 is pretty small, and the storyline is kind of bare-bones such that it doesn't really feel like it's doing much to build the world. The jump from SF2 to SF3 is like it's not even the same game. ...really the best expansion seemed to be with the three scenarios for SF3: instead of fleshing out the world through the events of one game becoming the ancient history of the next, though, it was three sides of a global conflict that you got to experience. It definitely made the world feel richer, but since it didn't have that temporal dimension, it didn't give me the same feeling of the history of a world that Lunar TSS -> Lunar EB did. KF

Sorry, I've never actually played a Langrisser game (though we have III). You might be thinking of Growlanser II, which at one point I knew extremely well. As IK notes, it's a direct sequel to Growlanser (I), which makes it all the more frustrating that the latter was never localized. Growlanser II does have its own plot independent of the first game, but the first half and most of the playable characters are callbacks to the first game. (I still haven't played more than the beginning of the first game, which was originally released on PlayStation. For some reason it kept crashing on our Japanese PS2 and I eventually gave up trying. I did pick up the PSP game and need to give that a shot someday.) Growlanser III is a prequel to II and might give some of that epic history feel (II takes place very shortly after I, like, a year), but I only played a little of it because you can import save data from II for a fairly minor use and I wanted to get back to II and get all eight endings first.

Man, I was just talking last week about picking up Grow II again. And I just got word from spouse that FF XII has already been delivered so that probably won't be happening any time soon. Oh well.

Yeah, Growlanser II takes place a year after Growlanser, aside from a short introduction section that takes place during the events of the original. One neat thing the game does is have the main character be from a different country as the main character from the original. You get to see a different perspective. In Growlanser (and in general among Career Soft games) counties aren't depicted as the "good" country vs. the "evil" country. There are sometimes outside forces (which are more clear cut as evil) manipulating events in various ways, but the countries generally pursue their own interests as they see them, which may at times put them at odds with each other. Growlanser III concerns a very significant event from the past (from the perspective of I&II) but the nature of the story is such that most of game depicts events that no one in I or II would have any knowledge of. For whatever reason, after that Career Soft abandoned the idea of telling a connected story. Growlanser IV tells a completely stand-alone story, while the stories of V&VI are connected (but not to any of the earlier games).

Lufia is an interesting example. If you've ever played the original, then you pretty much know how Lufia II is going to end because it's the prologue to the original. Lufia II depicts the events leading up to it (and elaborates a bit on what happened). I've never played any of the other Lufia games so I can't really say anything about how they connect to I&II.

Right, I had totally forgotten that Carmaine is from Rolandia (and now I'm blanking on the name of Wein's country). Growlanser II hints at a lot more political intrigue between countries than actually happens in the game, which I'm guessing is part of the callbacks to the first game.

We started Grow V but got a bit bogged down in the beginning part, which I understand is the generation before the main characters' story? Did not know VI was connected.

Wein (and most of II's playable cast) is from Burnstein, although both I&II have playable characters from both Rolandia and Burnstein. There's a third country on the continent, Ranzack, although it doesn't have as large a role in I's story as the other two counties and barely has a role at all in II. And in general international relations get very messy in Career Soft games. Countries can go from peaceful relations to war to an alliance in the span of a single game, or a civil war in one county might lead to other countries aligning with one faction or the other, and as I alluded to outside forces may be at work manipulating behind the scenes. One of my favorite examples from the series, though minor, is a case where there's a character who shows up at various points to either help or hinder your party seemingly at random. His motivation? He's an arms dealer looking to prolong a war by assisting whichever side appears to be losing at any given time. Other forces, of course, have larger goals than profiteering and play a more major role in the story of any given game.

Yeah, the beginning of V takes place a generation before the main story and has you do a couple of chapters from the perspective of different characters (actually now I don't remember 100% if the time jump occurs after all of those chapters are done or just a few). It's a neat idea because it, in theory, gives the player a deeper understanding of the perspectives of various characters. That having been said, it does end up dragging on a bit too long before you get to the main story. Good ideas with less than stellar execution is, unfortunately, a bit of a recurring problem with V.

The spotty localization record of the Growlanser series is kind of a problem, in that both of the unlocalized games (I&VI) connect to games that were localized. I would not at all be surprised to see a fan translation of I down the road, but I'm not aware of any active projects on that front. It does have that script translation though.

Kizyr wrote:...come to think of it, I'm not sure if there are very many game series I've even played that could fall into this category...

That's one reason why I asked. It seemed like something video games can do very well design-wise, though there might be market limitations against creating a sequel that may not stand-alone for new players in a series. I think Shining Force could get away with it partly because it didn't draw too much attention to the fact that it was a sequel in the same world - as you say, the world may feel richer for people having played the other games, but the insight spans a continent, not necessarily a span of time.

Imperial Knight and Alunissage, I appreciate the Langrisser/Growlanser discussion. With Growlanser II and III, the connections between them felt fairly tenuous. IIRC the act that connects to Growlanser II is related to the main story but doesn't resolve it, and there's a whole other half of the game to play after that point. As a prequel, the connection between the worlds feels more like a convenient coincidence (oh, that's where it comes from) rather than something that makes the world of Growlanser I and II more significant.

A couple of other series that come to mind: The Legend of Heroes series. I've only played Trails in the Sky and Trails in the Sky SC, which each take place in close relation to one another. SC expands on the story of the first game and fleshes out more of the behind-the-scenes machinations of the first game. They do this with reference to stories of an ancient civilization and its extremely powerful artifacts. I haven't played Trails of Cold Steel or Trails in the Sky 3rd, but if they continued to deepen the stories of that world and invoked any kind of myth cycle, they might resemble what I'm thinking about.

Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn tries to do this with some degree of success. It shows the conflicts begun in Path of Radiance from a new perspective, only later incorporating Ike and the heroes from the previous games. Like Shining Force, it better defines the world but doesn't build up a repetitive mythology experienced generationally.

"Just as you touch the energy of every life form you meet, so, too, will will their energy strengthen you. Fail to live up to your potential, and you will never win. " --- The Old Man at the End of Time

Imperial Knight and Alunissage, I appreciate the Langrisser/Growlanser discussion. With Growlanser II and III, the connections between them felt fairly tenuous. IIRC the act that connects to Growlanser II is related to the main story but doesn't resolve it, and there's a whole other half of the game to play after that point. As a prequel, the connection between the worlds feels more like a convenient coincidence (oh, that's where it comes from) rather than something that makes the world of Growlanser I and II more significant.

I think this is largely correct. I will say that missing the localization for I really hurts here, because the backstory that relates to III is explored in much more depth in I than in II. Still, after the Space-Time Control Tower sequence the story in III doesn't really enhance one's understanding of I&II since the histories of the worlds diverge. Langrisser I think is a much stronger example of myth building for a variety of reasons, including having characters who appear in all five games and how you're constantly learning more about the history of the world and the titular sword and revisiting elements from previous games. You might even learn that something all the characters from previous games assumed to be true turned out to incorrect. Of the series I've played it's probably the best example I can think of what you're looking for.